Well, there are supposedly four ways to find projects. Unfortunately only two of them work.
1. The project finder method.
As you may already have gathered from the previous discussions, it’s completely useless.
I searched for Chinese to English translation, and there were zero results (I tried with both styles of Chinese). I added that I want the show to be from China and again zero results.. When I know for sure that there are Chinese projects in desperate need of subbers
It’s a total disgrace which puts Viki into ridicule, I don’t know they haven’t given priority to fixing it, before putting so much effort into other stuff. Anyway.
2. The Explore method.
A bit long, but it might yield results. Of course, if you don’t have Viki pass yet, there is no option to filter only those you CAN watch. The only options are “All shows” and “Viki pass”. Yeah, I know, this sucks. One would think that Viki would make the new volunteers’s lives easier, but no, they couldn’t care less. Aaaaanyway.
I also chose TV and that left us with “only” 461 shows. Let’s sort by “New” (menu on the right), so that we quickly go past the first ones which are Fan Channels (not yet licensed), Coming Soon and On-Air. This brings us to the next page. Okay, from here one, you’re stuck. There’s no way of knowing whether those hundreds of shows have already been completed in English or not. No percentage shown on the thumbnails or info. You will have to click on each and every one of them to check.
Fortunately if you hover your mouse on the thumbnail it will tell you how many languages it’s translated into. If there is more than one (English), it probably means that English is 100% complete, right? Wrong! It may be that English, and the other languages with it, are all stuck somewhere in the middle. To be absolutely certain, you have to go to the show, click on the “episodes” tab, choose the last episodes, and see whether those are more than 96% in English. Be careful to have English as your subtitle language before doing that. (It’s done by clicking on any episode of any show, choosing English as subtitle language. Then you will see info about the English anywhere you look)
So that method is also pretty useless, it will take you ages to find something.
3. Writing here on Discussions
There’s the thread “Do you want to subtitle? Let people know”. Moderators have a look when they need subbers, so do leave a post there.
4. Asking the moderators.
I think the quickest method is to go to recent channels (no matter whether they are on-air or recently finished) and mark down names of English moderators who work or have worked for Chinese shows. Go to the show, choose the Team tab and choose English moderator. Better still, scroll down to the so-called “Cover page”, where the roles are detailed. You don’t want an English moderator who is just a General Editor or a Translation Editor, you need the name of the Chief Editor. That’s the one who chooses the subbers. Collect a good bunch of names and keep them on a document, they will come handy in the future as well. You may even keep notes on how they responded to you. Then send a message to each of them, in English, telling them that you are available for in translating a Chinese show if they need help in one of their projects. Include some other info about you, whether Chinese is your mothertongue or how long you studied it or any diplomas you may have or whether you lived in China etc. And be sure to mention whether you have Viki pass or not. The region you are living in is also helpful. Americas (North and South), Asia, Europe, Middle East? Because not all shows are licensed in all regions.
Tip: Don’t write to too many people at once, not more than 3-4 at a time, I would say. What if ALL of them write back offering you a place in a project? How will you handle so many? And it’s a bit rude to decline after you were the one to ask.
